The Monroe Doctrine 255 



should receive European immigration, it is highly 

 undesirable that any of them should be under Eu- 

 ropean control. 



So much for the general principles, and the justi- 

 fication, historically and morally, of the Monroe 

 Doctrine. Now take the specific case at issue. Great 

 Britain has a boundary dispute with Venezuela. 

 She claims as her own a territory which Venezuela 

 asserts to be hers, a territory which in point of size 

 very nearly equals the Kingdom of Italy. Our Gov- 

 ernment, of course, can not, if it wishes to remain 

 true to the traditions of the Monroe Doctrine, submit 

 to the acquisition by England of such an enormous 

 tract of territory, and it must therefore find out 

 whether the English claims are or are not well 

 founded. It would, of course, be preposterous to 

 lay down the rule that no European power should 

 seize American territory which was not its own, and 

 yet to permit the power itself to decide the question 

 of the ownership of such territory. Great Britain 

 refused to settle the question either by amicable 

 agreement with Venezuela or by arbitration. All 

 that remained for the United States, was to do what 

 it actually did ; that is, to try and find out the facts 

 for itself, by its own commission. If the facts show 

 England to be in the right, well and good. If they 

 show England to be in the wrong, we most certainly 

 ought not to permit her to profit, at Venezuela's ex- 

 pense, by her own wrong-doing. 



We are doing exactly what England would very 

 properly do in a like case. Recently, when the 



